Software Acquirers - What were unexpected technical issues you came across?

professional profile

July 26, 2023

by a professional in Lehighton, PA 18235, USA

What were some of the technical issues you came across when you took over the the software company?
- Legacy codebase? (Birds nest for technical reviews)
- Terrible support workflow?
- Bugs that plagued the userbase?
- Myriad of systems banded together?
- Tough support/developers who had their own thoughts?
etc.

Interested in hearing your experiences......

4
19
101
Replies
19
commentor profile
Reply by an investor
from Stanford University in Pleasanton, CA, USA
You may want to make sure that the code and processes are well documented. That is key for the business to easily, hire and train replacements to developers - if needed.

Also quality of developers/team makes a huge difference. Take a look at support tickets and see how long it takes for the business to fix bugs and add new, requested features. By comparing that to industry peers, you can estimate the quality of the code and team.

Great engineers add a lot of value. I was looking at an acquisition a few years ago. That business had an opportunity to close a large, enterprise deal. But their application's architecture would not work with that prospective customer's security requirements. Over the next week, the lead engineer and team managed to create a brand new layer using high quality, open-source code. That helped them close that sale. After that, they added many other large orgs to their sales pipeline. Unfortunately (for me), they also lost interest in being acquired once these large deals started coming in. 🙂 If you would like more details about this or any other help with your deal, DM me and we can setup a call.

Wish you the best.
commentor profile
Reply by a searcher
from University of Chicago in Chicago, IL, USA
I agree with many of the concerns raised above, but I'll also add one more: Searchers with a non-technical background. Acquiring any type of specialized business, particularly tech-focused or heavily tech-enabled, is made much easier with the right background & experience. In this case, a STEM background + software industry experience. If you don't have either of these, I'd highly suggest researching how software development businesses operate, their processes, etc. as well as connecting with a consultant of some sort or several mentors from the industry before going any further. I'm fortunate in that my uncle is a seasoned software engineer with 40 years of experience + up to his phd in software engineering (currently working at Intel in California) so I often find myself chatting with him & getting his perspective on things like legacy code, processes, etc.
commentor profile
+17 more replies.
Join the discussion